1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to conveyors including a motor-driven endless conveyor belt for transporting articles and mounted on legs above a support surface of the type and construction suitable for use where conditions of high cleanliness are required such as, for example, in the food industry and in the pharmaceutical industry. The invention is particularly characterized by the construction of its principal frame elements, those elements comprising an elongated conveyor support extending longitudinally along the length of the conveyor and a plurality of frame members mounted on the conveyor support in spaced apart relation to each other and including structural features whereby guide rails for the articles being conveyed, the endless belt itself, and support legs may be attached without enclosing the conveyor such that all structural elements can be easily and efficiently cleaned to maintain an extremely sanitary working environment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is, of course, well known in the prior art to construct conveyor mechanisms including a motor-driven endless conveyor belt for transporting articles and mounting that mechanism on legs above a support surface. However, when such conveyors are used for handling, transporting, or packaging food products and pharmaceuticals, maintaining the cleanliness of the conveyor is a necessity. Most such prior art conveyor mechanisms are of a construction that effectively encloses substantial portions of the conveyor with panels or covers, and this is frequently done for purposes of structural integrity, and, sometimes, in order to protect the operators from moving parts. While safety and structural integrity are certainly important, maintaining such state-of-the-art conveyor mechanisms at the required level of cleanliness becomes both a laborious and expensive operation.
Not only is it necessary essentially to disassemble the conveyor mechanism for cleaning, but also additional time and effort must then be expended to re-assemble the conveyor. In reality, the additional time and expense are frequently minimized by not removing all side panels and covers, necessarily resulting in inadequate, if not improper, cleaning of the equipment. If the conveyor is being used to handle raw food products, this necessarily increases the likelihood of contamination. Such would, of course, also be true with regard to any product wherein the maintenance of a high degree of cleanliness is required.
While there have been attempts to overcome these problems of cleaning sanitary conveyor mechanisms, in actuality present solutions are inadequate. It is therefore clear that there remains a great need in the art for an improved sanitary conveyor mechanism and frame system that will adequately and safely support the required equipment and that is capable of assembly in a variety of configurations, while permitting thorough, hygienic cleaning of the conveyor with virtually no disassembly required.
The present invention relates to an improved sanitary conveyor frame used in combination with a sanitary conveyor mechanism including a motor-driven endless conveyor belt for transporting articles and mounted on legs above a support surface. The improvement comprises an elongated conveyor support extending longitudinally along the length of the conveyor and the plurality of frame members, each one of the frame members being mounted on the conveyor support in spaced apart relation to another of the frame members. The frame members each comprise a support aperture formed therethrough, with the support aperture being dimensioned and configured to receive the conveyor support in surrounding, supporting relation thereto. Each of the frame members further comprise a plurality of arms extending outwardly from the support aperture along a first plane that is substantially normal to the axis of the support aperture. Formed at the end of each of the arms is a leg that is disposed in substantially parallel relation to the axis of the support aperture.
Each of the frame members further comprise a plurality of first connector apertures, with one first connector aperture being formed between each of the arms and the support aperture. As will be described in a preferred embodiment of the invention, below, these first connector apertures are used, in combination with standard connectors such as, for example, nuts and bolts, to assemble various configurations for the conveyor system and to provide for the attachment of upper guide rails for the articles being conveyed and leg brackets for the attachment of support legs.
Formed through each of the legs of each support member is a second connector aperture, and these second connector apertures are provided for attachment of track guides, again by any suitable fastening means such as, for example, nuts and bolts, to receive and retain the endless conveyor belt, operatively, on the sanitary conveyor mechanism.
The invention accordingly comprises the features of construction, combinations of elements, and arrangements of parts which will be exemplified in the constructions hereinafter set forth, and the scope of the invention will be indicated in the claims.